POLSCI 116: Introduction to American Politics

Welcome!

People:

  • Jon Green (Professor)
  • Jihyun Jeong (TA)

Logisics

Reuben-Cooke 127 (Psych is in 126)

Meetings:

  • Tuesday/Thursday 11:45-1:00

LMS:

  • Canvas (the future)

Logistics: Canvas

Announcements: should also go to your inbox

  • Can message us through Canvas or email when needed

Modules: contain all materials for that week

  • Direct access to electronic materials, reminders for offline materials

Assignment uploads

Grades

A bit about Jon

  • New to Duke
  • Grew up in Charlottesville, VA (go Hoos)
  • Moved here from Boston by way of Columbus
  • My wife, Kelly, works in the Pratt School
  • Our dog, Lizzy, likes to say hi on Zoom meetings

A picture of my dog wearing a UVA jersey.

A bit about Jihyun

  • Fifth-year Ph.D. candidate
    • Moved to Durham in 2019
  • Grew up in Seoul, South Korea
  • When not buried in dissertation…
    • Cooking
    • Playing games with friends
    • Avoiding the outdoor heat

A bit about you

  • Name
  • Where you’re from
  • Earliest memory in U.S. politics

Course Goals

Successful students will…

  1. Understand foundational concepts in political science
  2. Gain broad understanding of U.S. politics and be prepared for further in-depth course work
  3. Be prepared to engage with and participate in U.S. politics outside of the classroom

Syllabus

The syllabus is…

  • The contract for the course
  • Available on Canvas
  • Your go-to document for weekly reading lists, assignments, deadlines, and course policies
  • If anything on it needs to change (switching reading assignments, e.g.), I will announce those changes in advance

Office Hours

My office hours:

  • Wednesday 4-5, Friday1 2-3, or by appointment
  • Gross Hall 294H

Jihyun’s office hours:

  • Thursday 2-3
  • Zoom: https://duke.zoom.us/j/6147869612

Format

No separate discussion section, but I’m going to try to avoid lecturing for 160 minutes / week.

Assessment

Daily reading quizzes (50%):

  • Posted 6:00am day of class
  • Open book, not collaborative
  • Straightforward if you’ve done the reading
  • Must turn in physical copy, printed or hand-written
  • One point for attendance, second point for accuracy

Assessment

ChatGPT Critical Review (3 x 10%)

  • I will ask ChatGPT to write the 1000 word essay I would have assigned
  • It will not do a very good job
  • You will receive the essay prompt and ChatGPT’s output, and submit a review of the output based on the material we have covered up to that point in the course.

Assessment

Final exam (20%):

  • In-person, comprehensive
  • Combination of multiple choice and short answer

Questions so far?

Rules and Norms

This is your job.

  • You are well-qualified and capable of excelling if you show up and do the work.

  • You and your classmates are colleagues inside and outside of the classroom.

  • Political science ≠ politics.

Attendance

  • Attendance is graded because it’s important
  • You are allowed two unexcused absences
  • Excused absences must be requested in advance

Deadlines

Deadlines are where they are for a reason.

  • But! Things happen
  • If you find out you need an extension, write me as soon as you know
  • Late critical reviews: 1/3 letter grade off each day they’re late

Grading

You can request re-grades on assignments. But:

  • You can’t ask for free points
  • You must respect our time

Requests must be made in writing and explain why they’re warranted.

New grades are independent of original grades.

Accommodations

I want to make sure that you have equal access to this course.


If you need to and haven’t already, contact the Student Disability Access Office (sdao@duke.edu / https://access.duke.edu/students).

Questions about course policies?

Required textbook

Kernell, et al. 2021. The Logic of American Politics. 11th Edition, CQ Press.


Everything else that you’ll read, watch, and listen to will be posted on Canvas.

How to read for this class

We have a lot of material to cover. Some of it will be difficult.

But! Every reading has a reason.

Reading for social science is different from reading a novel.

Read efficiently and strategically. This is a useful skill to practice and it is not the same thing as skimming.

Outline of the course

Part 1: Foundations

  • Democratic Citizenship and Collective Action
  • The Constitution
  • Federalism
  • Civil Rights and Liberties

Part 1: Democratic Citizenship and Collective Action

  • Are citizens capable of democracy?
  • What is the social contract?
  • What is collective action? Why is it both challenging and necessary?

Part 1: The Constitution

  • How does the Constitution structure collective action?
  • How is the Constitution the product of collective action?
  • What are some key features of our Constitution in a comparative perspective?

Part 1: Federalism

  • What is federalism?
  • How does federalism structure collective action?
  • What are key tradeoffs associated with federalism?

Part 1: Civil Rights and Liberties

  • What are key “freedoms to” and “freedoms from” outlined in the Constitution?
  • How have interest groups and social movements organized collectively to secure those freedoms?

Outline of the course

Part 2: Institutions

  • Legislative (Congress)
  • Executive (Presidency)
  • Executive (Bureaucracy)
  • Judicial (Supreme Court)

Part 2: Legislative (Congress)

  • How is Congress organized?
  • How do members of Congress behave?
  • (Why) has Congress polarized?

Part 2: Executive (Presidency)

  • What are the powers of the presidency? How have they expanded in the modern era?
  • Given this increase in power, how is the president still kept in check?

Part 2: Executive (Bureaucracy)

  • How does the government implement policy?
  • How do people interact with the government?

Part 2: Judicial (Supreme Court)

  • What is judicial review?
  • Is the Supreme Court “calling balls and strikes” or are they politicians in robes?

Outline of the course

Part 3: The U.S. Public

  • Public Opinion
  • Political Parties
  • Elections
  • Interest Groups
  • The Media

Part 3: Public Opinion

  • What is public opinion?
  • How do surveys work, what are they useful for, and are they broken? (Spoiler: not really)
  • When and how does public opinion change?
  • Under what conditions is government responsive to public opinion?

Part 3: Political Parties

  • What is a political party?
  • What is the relationship between institutional design and political party formation?
  • What roles do political parties play in U.S. politics?

Part 3: Elections

  • How are elections organized in the United States?
  • What are the fundamentals of voter turnout and choice?

Part 3: Interest Groups

  • What are interest groups, and why do they matter?
  • How do interest groups transact with political parties?
  • How has the nature of interest group politics changed in the U.S. over time?

Part 3: The Media

  • Why is the media important to U.S. politics?
  • How has the media environment in the U.S. changed over time?

For Next Class

“Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don’t.” - Hans Noel (2010)

“Politics is for Power, Not Consumption.” - Eitan Hersh (2019)

How Democracies Die interview with authors (latter 2/3rds of radio segment) - NPR (2018)

Introduction

Before we start

Quiz recap:

  1. Collective rationality? Condorcet winner / no majority cycles
  1. Andrew Yang’s mistake(s)? Duverger, “special” interest groups not clearly defined
  1. Problems with hobbyism? Sets bad incentives for politicians, distracts from meaningful political activity
  1. Hobbyists like amateur Democrats or party regulars? Amateur Democrats
  1. Which norms? Mutual toleration (opponents legitimate); forbearance (exercise restraint, stay well within rules of the game)

What is politics?

Loosely, politics is the process of determining who gets what.

Politics is inherently conflictual.

Politics is everywhere.

Why is political conflict important?

Conflict is the natural byproduct of freedom and interest.

Why is political conflict important?

Conflict aids group decisionmaking.

Is politics really everywhere?

Where else do you see politics? Here are some places I see politics:

  • Regulations covering food, housing, transportation, communication networks, pollution, etc.
  • Labor laws that affect the wages, working conditions, collective bargaining rights, and unemployment benefits of the people who work here
  • Trade agreements that determine how much you paid for your clothes (and how much the person who made them got paid)
  • Immigration and financial aid policies that influence university attendance
  • Vaccines and medical treatments developed using federally-funded research and federally-regulated testing regimes
  • Government-collected data that lets us forecast the weather
  • How social media platforms moderate their content
  • …and so on

Is politics really everywhere?

Think about this the next time you get in an elevator.

What is political science?

Political science is the systematic study of politics.

  • Empirical and theoretical branches
  • Empirical research can be…
    • Descriptive
    • Inferential
  • Theory can be…
    • Positive
    • Normative

What is political science?

Political scientists ask (and try to answer) questions like…

  • Why do people vote (for which candidates)?
  • How does institutional design affect policy outcomes?
  • Under what conditions do social movements achieve their goals?

What is political science?

Some questions from my own work:

  • Among those who are interested in running for office for the first time, who actually does and why?
  • Do people consume partisan and unreliable information on the internet because of platforms’ algorithms or their own preferences?
  • Do conspiracy theories about election fraud make people more or less likely to vote?
  • How do political ideologies form and evolve?

What about you?

What’s a political science research question you’re curious about?

Social science is hard

Einstein had it easy. Physics has laws of nature.

Humans are irreducibly complex. The social world is always changing.

Models

Empirical social science deals in models.

All models are wrong, but some are useful. What does that mean?

Models

Let’s build a model of voter turnout. What are some factors you think matter?

What is authority?

Authority is the formal right to do something.

What is legitimacy?

Legitimacy is the acknowledged right to do something.

Institutions depend on legitimacy.

What is power?

Power is a few things.

What is power?

First, power is the ability to get someone to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do.

Common examples: lawmaking, contract negotiation

I have power in this classroom because I make decisions that affect your behavior.

What is power?

But power is also the ability to exclude people and issues from the decisionmaking process altogether.

Common examples: agenda setting, voter eligibility

I have power in this classroom because I decide what topics to put on the syllabus.

What is power?

And power is also the ability to affect how someone thinks about an issue.

Common examples: ideology, system justification, apathy

I have power in this classroom if I can get you to think about U.S. politics from the perspective of a political scientist instead of a lawyer or pundit.

What is government?

Loosely, government is a set of formal institutions that exercise political power.

Why is government important?

Government organizes and manages political conflict, directing collective action (we’ll talk more about this next week).

Forms of government

Differentiated by how consolidated authority is:

  • Unitary system: single national government
  • Federation: national government splits authority with district governments
  • Confederation: national government emerges from district governments

Forms of government

Differentiated by the question of who rules:

  • One (monarchy, dictatorship)
  • Few (oligarchy, aristocracy)
  • Many (polity, democracy)

Forms of democracy

“The United States is a republic, not a democracy.” – someone advantaged by an undemocratic outcome

A republic is a form of democracy in which citizens elect representatives to govern.

Many flavors of democracy, not a binary.

Democracy is a system…but it’s also a value

U.S. political culture marked by multiple broadly-shared values that are often in tension.

Democracy is one: majority preference should win out

Here are two others:

  • Freedom: the government shouldn’t interfere with what people say or do
  • Equality: your characteristics shouldn’t determine your opportunities

U.S. politics often involves tradeoffs between these values. It’s hard!

Rules and Norms (Again)

Democracies rely on a combination of rules and norms because you can’t write everything important down in advance.

Let’s think about some norms in college classes:

  • Be collegial
  • If you have to go, just go
  • You aren’t on a first-name basis with faculty

Ok, let’s talk about what you read

Let’s think about some norms in U.S. democracy.

Mutual toleration…examples?

  • Publicly conceding losses
  • Not calling opponents existential threats

Ok, let’s talk about what you read

Forbearance…examples?

  • Filibuster rules
  • Supreme Court independence

Ok, let’s talk about what you read

Less high-stakes norms…examples?

  • White House Correspondents Association dinner
  • State of the Union Address

Ok, let’s talk about what you read

What is something political scientists knew that you didn’t?

Ok, let’s talk about what you read

What about some things political scientists didn’t know that you thought they would?

Ok, let’s talk about what you read

How many of you felt personally attacked by the idea of political hobbyism?

Political parties’ relationship with ideology?

For next class

  • Logic of American Politics, Chapter 1
  • “Of the Ruling of Men,” W.E.B. Dubois
  • The social contract (YouTube)